Andrew DeVigal

Some excellent thinking here including

ON community leading:

My team aims to transform an audience of passive consumers into active collaborators, and a newsroom of traditional journalists into community leaders, of a sort.

ON recognizing expertise

To dismiss the audience editor’s creative capabilities is to dismiss the audience’s creative capabilities.

On the Engagement Field Guide

There are journalists doing great work to actively engage audiences in the storytelling process. We want to create a more cohesive community where we can compare notes and encourage each other’s work.

myownmtv:

(via Teahupo'o, Du Ciel on Vimeo)

Simply spectacular. Inspiring.

Also, extremely impressed that it’s distributed mainly because of its beautiful footage and NOT as yet another drone video. I’m looking forward to the day when technology is in the background and we’re not overly concerned about the how.

“For those who want to do this, I believe one must possess a voracious appetite for knowledge, a maniacal desire to engage with the world, very deep, personal interests that will you to explore issues, places, themes, stories, what have you. And you must have sensitivity, compassion for others, a desire to do good and illuminate. You must read and study and know about the world, especially the subjects you choose to investigate and explore deeply. You must have the reflexes of an athlete in some ways, whether they are fast and responsive, or slow and reflective.”

This statement should be added to all journalism syllabi and curriculum.

The interactive (and analog) lobby display at Portland Then & Now: A Funeral for Old Portland (at Artists Repertory Theatre)

As Americans, we often find ways to cook for each other, to dance with each other, to host with each other, but why can’t that translate into how we treat each other as communities? It’s a devastating irony, how we have gone forward as individuals, and backwards as communities.

Powerful perspective of how we’ve grown as individuals but not as a community. Inspiration talk from Rich Benjamin. Although, there were moments people laughed at the most inappropriate time… IMHO.

This is brilliant. I’d buy a pair. Although, my current specs already looks a bit like Din Light Black. 

One piece of data: 142 square feet per person. That’s the ratio of space per person that seems to work best for creativity. It gets a little intense when it gets much lower and the energy drops when it goes higher. How we got to that figure just took time and awareness of how people were feeling and acting.

Interesting data point: 142 square feet per person when designing a new modern office space.

At half-staff as ordered. (at The University of Texas at Austin)

After reading Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” my wife inspired me to finally donate this classic relic from Internet 1.0.

Public transport should continue into the night, while neighbourhoods on the city’s fringes should receive basic amenities such as pavements.

That’s right… pavements!

Portland Pride Parade

In the new Community Engagement category, the Seattle Times was recognized in the large circulation entries, for its Education Lab, which used guest columns, live chats, public forums and other engagement forms to create a dialogue with the community about fixing public schools. The Alabama Media Group was a joint winner in that category for bringing together a range of voices to address the long history of problems in the state’s prison system.

Congrats to The Seattle Times, Solutions Journalism Network and The Education Lab!

There may be diversity but it’s not the same as having a difference.

On diversity.

This argument for Paycheck Journalism is pretty compelling.

Trickle-Down Community Engagement (TDCE). This is when we bypass the people who are most affected by issues, engage and fund larger organizations to tackle these issues, and hope that miraculously the people most affected will help out in the effort, usually for free.

and…

Every single week, we leaders of color get asked to provide input, to join an advisory committee, attend a summit, to fill out a survey. Because of this well-intentioned mandate to engage with communities, we get bombarded with requests to do stuff for free.

Trickle-Down Community Engagement is pretty dangerous, for several reasons. When people who are most affected by issues are not funded and trusted to lead the efforts to address them.

Must read.

I think it’s just rewarding me for not being dead. I get rewarded for walking to the fridge. I get rewarded for having a pulse. My dog likes to defecate in my tomato garden, which I deal with by shoveling his dried turds over the fence and into my neighbor’s hot tub. I even get rewarded for that. I get rewarded for my airborne caca missiles. Achievement unlocked. Thanks, Apple. You’re the best. Caca missiles are the best. I am never taking this fucking watch off.

Hilarious!

Just discovered Current’s The Pub podcast recently and binging on its past episodes. I thoroughly enjoy Adam Ragusea’s tone and humor. This particular episode caught my ear. For anyone interested in public media and podcast, it’s a must listen.

… your phone offering up music when it thinks you’re about to go for a run, or an audiobook when you get in your connected car.

I recall Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson coined this as “media moments” years ago.

Badges indicate specific skills and knowledge, backed by links to electronic evidence of how and why, exactly, the badge was earned.

Intriguing idea. 

Vimeo Now Lets Creators Launch Their Own Subscription Video-On-Demand Channels | TechCrunch

Good or bad for documentary filmmakers?

(via The Pencilsword: On a plate - The Wireless)

The rest of the story on The Wireless. File under #privilege and #equitydisparity

(via Portable, solar-powered ecocapsules mean you can live rent- and electric-bill free, globally - Quartz)

Redefining the Tiny Home. This changes everything… although I think I’ll still need a water line or some sort of water reserve. It is a fascinating option for the desirable living with less lifestyle.

Film really expressed a reality that we don’t see in the digital world. It’s so easy to take something out of a frame. To highly polish a frame. She really wanted to get at the essence of what was there in front of us.

Joni Kabana on Mary Ellen Mark

(via Megan Smith: The Untold Story of Women Who Code (Apr. 29, 2015) | Charlie Rose - YouTube)

There are these incredible photographs from the launch of the Macintosh in the 80’s, and the Rolling Stone pictures that were published. The historic record shows this group of 10 people in a pyramid–actually 11, seven men and four women. Every photograph you see with the Mac team has Joanna Hoffman, who was the product manager, a great teammate of Steve Jobs, and Susan Kare who did all the graphics and user interface on the artist side. None of them made it into the Jobs movie. They’re not even cast. And every man in the photographs is in the movie with a speaking role. It’s debilitating to our young women to have their history almost erased.

This. Must. Change.

Magnum “Postcards from America” pop up exhibition (at Newspace Center for Photography)

Since coming to Portland in the fall of 2012, I am often asked if I miss living in New York. My quick and knee-jerk response is almost always a “no” as I find that Portland offers easier access to many of the things I value (community, culture, nature and work) without the challenges of living in NYC (high-cost of living, fast-pace and grime).

This video reminds me of one of the things I miss. The opportunity to call up friends who live in NYC, like Bob Sacha, for a coffee or a glass of wine and feed my soul. (To be clear, I enjoy and find it easier to grab coffee or beer with an amazing network of collaborators here in Portland.) There’s just all kinds of goodness in this interview:

There’s also an emotional and spiritual way of judging it (work). So maybe you only made $500 but spiritually you have this amazing amount of richness. So is that a net-loss for the year? For me, it’s not.  

I miss our chats, Bob! Thanks for your wisdom in this interview.

dreamlectures:

Bob Sacha is an award-winning photographer, multimedia producer, documentary filmmaker, editor and teacher who first made his name as a magazine photojournalist. As a contributing photographer at both Life and National Geographic Magazine, he covered a variety of assignments around the world for more than 25 years, from New Orleans and New York City to China and Easter Island. 

(via Maine Media Interview with Bob Sacha on Vimeo)

File under Academia. Some great messaging for incoming college students. 

On transition from high school or other institutions:

However, things are very different for a university professor. It is no part of my job to make you learn. At university, learning is your job — and yours alone. My job is to lead you to the fountain of knowledge. Whether you drink deeply or only gargle is entirely up to you.

On lecturing vs flip-classrooms:

The kind of listening you need to learn is not passive absorption, like watching TV; it is critical listening. Critical listening means that are not just hearing but thinking about what you are hearing. Critical listening questions and evaluates what is being said and seeks key concepts and unifying themes.

And finally, on purpose:

You see university as a place where you get a credential. For your professor, a university is not primarily about credentialing. Your professor still harbors the traditional view that universities are about education. If your aim is to get a credential, then for you courses will be obstacles in your path. For your professor, a course is an opportunity for you to make your world richer and yourself stronger.

Some great and classic quotes here, including:

In many parts of this world, doing real journalism is activism—because truth telling in some societies is an act designed to bring about change.

and

… helping people understand they world they live in, so they can make better decisions about how they live.

and

We should be openly biased toward openness and freedom. Period.

Journalism + Activism

Why journalists should (at least sometimes) be activists

Leonhardt: one of the best.

Letter: What We’ve Learned

Believe me…. there’s life after SF & NYC.

Why I’m Trapped in San Francisco

The reality. Also felt the same when I left.

Leaving the New York Times

There’s an unkind saying, “Those who can’t do, teach.” I’d offer a rewrite: “Teaching well forces you to stop doing things, and focus on helping others do things.” I build less, and write less, than before I came to MIT. But I coach more, listen more, and I’m starting to love the experience of watching projects I help advise coming to life.

I’ve never liked that saying either… and don’t agree with it. Once you stop doing, you’ve stop solving problems in the real world… thus stop truly learning. There needs to be a balance of research and practice, either as individuals or as a team.

Great stuff.

5 Ideas to Steal from ProPublica

Enough said.

Nonviolence As Compliance in Baltimore

Defintion.

Mr. President: We Commit Ourselves to an Inclusive Competitiveness Movement

Just listen…

Dear white Facebook friends: I need you to respect what Black America is feeling right now

Well put…

Microsoft (Yes, Microsoft) Has a Far-Out Vision

Seems like a fair apology.

How Vox aggregates - Vox

It’s both a revealing glimpse into a music scene that fell below the media and mainstream radars and a fascinating ethnographic study of the Filipino immigrants to set the foundation for it.

What a blast from the past. I often wondered what happened to members of the ol’ mobile DJ crews back in the day and how much we applied the life lessons of our youths to how we live now. The bonds we made then served us for a lifetime.

Portland… on the rise. (at Skidmore & Williams Streets)

Always important to know where you’re going and from where you came from #hyperlapse #sanfrancisco

Eugene bound on wheels (at Union Station (Portland, Oregon))

… if we allow our reverence for abstract academic ideals to paralyze us or make us overly fearful of change, we will become irrelevant.

File under: truth in academia.

An estimated 94 million Americans over the age of 12 listen to online radio each week, according to a 2014 study by Edison Research.

Yes!

Netflix is fond of saying it hires only “fully formed adults,” and the company treats them as such — bestowing on them great amounts of freedom so they can take risks and innovate without being bogged down by process.

Corporate courage.

Journalism education needs to be about discovery, about constantly learning how to learn.

Isn’t that true about education in general? Excellent and must-read report.